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Saturday, August 27, 2016

Gulf autocrats and sports corruption: A marriage made in heaven

Global soccer and global sports governance have for the past
nine years and certainly since a fateful meeting in late 2010 of the executive
committee of FIFA, the world soccer body, witnessed crisis after crisis.
Invariably the scandals involved corruption: financial corruption, political
corruption or corruption of sporting performance.

Invariably, Gulf autocracies were at the centre of the
financial and political corruption scandals. The 2010 FIFA meeting awarded
Qatar its hosting rights, fuelling already widespread suspicions of massive
corruption of global soccer governance and the awarding of one of the world’s
foremost sporting mega events. At the centre of that scandal was the now banned
and disgraced Qatari soccer executive Mohammed Bin Hammam. And lurking in the
shadows behind Bin Hammam was former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al
Thani, and his son and current emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Bin Hammam’s successor as head of the Asian Football
Confederation (AFC) and member of FIFA’s executive committee, Bahraini Sheikh
Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa brought alongside allegations of failure to act
against corruption a very different set of questions to the fore: the refusal
of FIFA and its constituent bodies like the AFC to seriously look into
allegations of human rights and particularly the rights of some of Bahrain’s
foremost soccer players.

Finally, international sports governance is grappling with
yet another politically driven crisis related to the Gulf: the suspension of
Kuwait by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and virtually all
international sports associations as a result of differences within the Gulf
state’s ruling Al Sabah family. At the centre of the crisis is Sheikh Ahmad
Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, a Kuwaiti politician and one of the most powerful
men in international sports who has used the IOC as well as the Olympic Council
of Asia (OCA), which he heads, to fight his domestic political battles and
enhance his global sports power.

What all of these scandals and crises have in common is far
more than a coincidental involvement of Gulf personalities. They all reflect in
extremity the problems involved in the relationship between sports and
politics, an inseparable and incestuous relationship that is allowed to
flourish unregulated and ungoverned with international sports associations and
governments misleadingly denying that the relationship even exists.

Gulf autocrats are well served by the denial. In fact, I
would argue that the relationship between Gulf autocrats and international
sports is a mutually beneficial marriage made in heaven. Certainly, FIFA serves
as a pillar of autocracy in the Gulf as well as in in countries in the larger
Middle East like Egypt or Syria. Application of FIFA rules serves those in
power for whom sports and soccer are tools to enhance their international
standing or polish their tarnished images, project their countries, create
leverage that allows them to punch above their weight, and hopefully manage
discontent at home.

Bin Hammam like Sheikh Salman and Sheikh Ahmad, Salman’s
protector, who was elected to the FIFA executive committee highlight the
intertwining of sports and politics as well as soccer’s affinity with
autocracy. Men like Bin Hammam, Salman, and Ahmad are products of autocracies
whose rise in international sports was paved in the 1970s when Middle Eastern
geopolitics spilt on to the soccer pitch.

At the time, FIFA threatened but failed to follow through on
threats to sanction the AFC for its expulsion of Israel as well as Taiwan in
violation of the principle of a separation of sports from politics. FIFA’s
failure wrote Arab politics into the DNA of Asian soccer and helped shape
global soccer’s cosiness with autocracy.

FIFA’s and the AFC’s refusal to enact principles enshrined
in their charters has had far-reaching consequences over the years for global
soccer governance, no more so since Bin Hammam became AFC president in 2002.
Men like Bin Hammam, Salman, and Ahmad are imperious, ambitious, and have
worked assiduously to concentrate power in their own hands and sideline their
critics clamouring for reform. Hailing from countries governed by absolutist,
hereditary leaders, they have been accused of being willing to occupy their
seats of power at whatever price with persistent allegations of bribery and
vote buying in their electoral campaigns.

Personal and national ambition, corruption, and greed led to
Bin Hammam’s ultimate downfall. Salman, like his relative, Prince Nasser bin
Hamad Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s sports czar, has been dogged by allegations that he
was involved in the arrest and human rights violations of scores of athletes
and sports officials accused of having participated in mass anti-government protests
in Bahrain in 2011. Both men have consistently denied any wrongdoing.

The role of men like Bin Hammam, Salman and Ahmad says much
about the intertwining of sports and politics that is nowhere more prevalent
than in the Middle East, whose 13 national associations, Israel not included,
account for 28 percent of the AFC’s 46 member associations. As a result, the
composition of the AFC’s executive committee speaks volumes.

Six of the AFC executive committee’s 21 members in the
period from 2011 to 2015 hailed from the Middle East. They included Salman,
Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, a half-brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah who has
emerged as a reformer and the only representative of an elite to have used his
status to promote change; the United Arab Emirates’ Yousuf Yaqoob Yousuf Al
Serkal, who maintains close ties to his country’s ruling elite; Sayyid Khalid
Hamed Al Busaidi, a member of Oman’s ruling family; Hafez Al Medlej, a member
of the board of Saudi Arabia’s tightly controlled soccer association, who made
his career in the Kingdom’s state-run media; and Susan Shalabi Molano, a member of the
executive committee of the Palestine Football Association (PFA) that is closely
aligned with the Palestinian Authority.

That number has risen to seven in the executive committee elected
in April 2015, which includes Sheikh Salman and Shalabi Molano as well as
Mohammed Khalfan Al Romaithi, head of the UAE soccer association and Deputy
Commander in Chief of the Abu Dhabi police force, a law enforcement agency with
a less than stellar human rights record. The committee also includes
representatives of Kuwait, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, and the head of the
Islamic Republic of Iran’s Football Federation (IRIFF).

The Middle East’s close ties between sport and politics are
regionally in Asia evident not only in the AFC but also in organizations like the
Olympic Council of Asia. The OAC is
headed by Sheikh Ahmed, a former oil minister, who also heads the Association
of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) and is believed to harbour political
ambitions in his home country and to play a major behind-the-scenes role in AFC
politics.

Ten of the 41 OAC’s board members hail from the Middle East.
The Saudi, Bahraini, and Jordanian members belong to ruling families while
those from Syria and Lebanon like their Thai and Pakistani counterparts are
military officers. Iran’s representatives include a former oil minister who
headed the country’s Physical Education Organization, the state entity that
exercises political control of sports, and the head of a state-owned soccer
club. Sheikh Ahmed’s brother is also a member.

The close ties between sport and politics, particularly in
the Middle East are also reflected in the composition of the boards of the
region’s national soccer associations and many of its major clubs. Almost half
of the West Asian Football Federation’s 13 members are headed by members of
ruling families or people closely associated with them. This includes Kuwait,
Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan.

Saudi Arabia’s association remains tightly controlled by the
kingdom’s General Presidency of Youth Welfare that is headed by a member of the
ruling Al Saud family even after former Saudi Arabian Football Federation
(SAFF) Prince Nawaf bin Faisal became in 2012 the Gulf’s first royal to resign
under popular pressure. Members of the
board of the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) are
closely linked to Iran’s Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution
popularly known as Pasdaran or Revolutionary Guards while many of its clubs are
owned by state entities. Similarly,
clubs in the Gulf and Syria are frequently owned by members of ruling families
and state institutions, including the military and security forces.

The AFC’s intimate association with politics is further highlighted
by former secretary general Peter Velappan’s glowing description of the group’s
long standing efforts to build bridges between feuding parties on the Asian
continent such as India and Pakistan, North and South Korea, Iraq and the Gulf
states following the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and China and Taiwan. Politics was moreover at the core of the
AFC's landmark decision in 1974 at the behest of its Arab members‎
to expel Israel in the wake of the 1973 Middle East war.

It was politics that ultimately persuaded FIFA not to follow
through on its threat when the AFC refused to succumb in one of the first acts
of defiance in the case of Israel by one of the world body's constituent
members. That same year FIFA again threatened the AFC for its expulsion of
Taiwan at the behest of China and again the world body succumbed to the Asian
group’s defiance. FIFA's failure and the
AFC's defiance created the basis for a policy by both organisations adhered to
until today that effectively supports autocratic rule by refusing to insist on
universal adherence by national associations to the principles, rules and
regulations of the global and regional governing bodies.

FIFA in the walk-up to this year’s presidential election
requested information from the Bahrain Football Association (BFA) about the
arrest and torture of soccer players accused of participating in a brutally
suppressed popular uprising in 2011.
Pressure by the world soccer body persuaded Bahraini authorities to
release two players, brothers Alaa and Mohammed Hubail, but FIFA refrained from
investigating the BFA or holding it accountable. In fact, it was evident to me
when the FIFA ethics committee approached me for evidence that Sheikh Salman
had been associated with abuse of human rights that the committee was
determined to come up empty handed. Sheikh Salman has since sought to
intimidate independent reporting by instructing his lawyers before he lost the
FIFA election to threaten and intimidate anyone looking into the matter. The
lawyers succeeded in many cases but failed in their three attempts to silence
me. So did Prince Nasser.

Ironically, the AFC’s undeclared yet effective support of
Middle Eastern autocracy played into Israel's cards despite its expulsion. The
policy served to strengthen the region’s autocrats whom Israel despite an
official state of war long viewed as regimes it could do business with and who
were less likely to seek its destruction. Ironically FIFA and the AFC’s
handling of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has come full circle in
the wake of the popular revolts that have rocked the Middle East in the 21st
century and mounting international criticism of Israeli policies that among
other things hinders the development of Palestinian soccer. After years of
failed mediation efforts, FIFA warned Israel in late 2014 that it could be
sanctioned if it failed to ensure the free movement of Palestinian players and
officials in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has so far defeated attempts to
suspend it. The question is for how long.

Among the rules and regulations that FIFA and the AFC choose
to enforce selectively are the eligibility of clubs to compete in premier
leagues and abidance by principles of non-discrimination.

This failure is clear
in the expulsions of Israel and Taiwan, the fact that clubs in Iran and Egypt are
often government-controlled or owned in violation of single ownership rules and
clubs elsewhere in the region have ties or are entities of families ruling with
absolute power. Similarly, Iran and Saudi Arabia bar women from entering
stadiums were men’s competitions are held. Saudi Arabia moreover refuses to
make women’s sporting rights universal. Then AFC general secretary Alex Soosay
defended during the Asian Games in Australia defended in early 2015 Iran’s ban
on women entering stadiums.

This effective support of autocracy takes on added
significance in a world in which the politics of soccer has played an
important, if not a key role in the development of various Middle Eastern and
North African nations since the late 19th and early 20th century. That role is
reflected in the fact that a large number of soccer clubs in the region were
founded with political associations and continuous efforts by autocratic
governments to politically control the game.
It is also evident in the politics underlying the Middle East and North
Africa’s foremost derbies, including Teheran’s Esteghlal FC v Persepolis FC, a
traditionally leftist opposition club versus one historically associated with
Iran’s rulers, Amman’s Al-Faisali SC v Al-Wehdat SC, a reflection of Jordan’s
East Bank-Palestinian divide, and Cairo’s Al Ahli v. Zamalek.

Middle Eastern autocracy was not alien to the world of
global soccer governance whose secretive ways pockmarked by lack of
transparency and accountability have come to a head with the controversy over
the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

Little in Salman’s career as head of the BFA, former
secretary general of the Bahrain National Olympic Committee, and president of
the AFC suggests a willingness to uphold values enshrined in the Asian body’s
statutes such as the group’s neutrality in politics, universally accepted
principles of good governance and management, or his own electoral promises.
Salman’s past electoral battle with Bin Hammam as well as his election in 2013
and his simultaneous defeat of Qatar’s Hassan al-Thawadi in the competition to
fill Bin Hammam’s vacant seat on the FIFA executive committee mirrored the
balance of power in the Gulf where Bahrain and Kuwait are more closely aligned
with Saudi Arabia than Qatar.

In an electoral message in his first AFC campaign, Salman, a
former soccer player, asserted that “I believe that too many power and
political games are affecting the harmony of Asian football when the only game
that should matter is the one taking place on football pitches. As leaders in
our sport, we must never lose sight of the fact that we are first and foremost
servants of the game, at all levels and in all corners of the Asian
continent.” Salman listed as his values
“fair play, cooperation, team work, transparency, integrity and passion for the
game.”

Salman’s failure to adhere to his electoral promises and
values has contributed to the failure of both the AFC and FIFA to put behind
them the worst corruption and mismanagement scandal in the history of world
soccer even if a number of non-Middle Eastern Asian soccer executives have been
sanctioned. In fact, a cleaning of the AFC’s house in line with recommendations
of an internal audit of the Asian group’s finances in 2012 that toppled Bin
Hammam, who was in 2013 banned for life from involvement in professional soccer,
could have helped spark badly needed reform of the world body.

The audit conducted by PricewaterhouseCooper (PWC) suggested
that the AFC under Bin Hammam’s management may have been involved in money
laundering, tax invasion, bribery, and busting of US sanctions against Iran and
North Korea. PwC warned that “it is our
view that there is significant risk that the AFC may have been used as a
vehicle to launder funds and that the funds have been credited to the former
President (Bin Hammam) for an improper purpose (Money Laundering risk), The AFC
may have been used as a vehicle to launder the receipt and payment of bribes.”

The audit questioned a $1 billion master rights agreement
(MRA) between the AFC and World Sport Group (WSG) negotiated by Bin Hammam
without putting it out to tender or financial due diligence.

My reporting on
the audit earned me a libel case in Singapore that I won in 2014 in a landmark
case that changed Singapore court procedures and enhanced the right of appeal
in libel cases. The AFC and Salman have refused to act on the recommendations
of the audit, let alone get to the bottom of the allegations. The only action
they took was the firing of General Secretary Soosay in June of last year after
I disclosed a video that documented his attempts to undermine the PwC auditors
by seeking to destroy documents. Officially, Soosay, who denied the allegations,
resigned voluntarily. He has since been hired as a consultant.

Finally, I want to dwell briefly on the controversy
surrounding Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup. I would argue that the debate
about Qatar is skewed by arrogance, prejudice, bigotry and sour grapes. That is
not say that there are not serious questions about the success of the Qatari
bid. The debate however is not truly about the values it professes to defend.

Issues of climate, size and legacy are too me expressions of
unease with the reflection of the more global shift from East to West on the
soccer pitch. The jury is still out on technology that Qatar was having
developed to alleviate the oppressive summer heat. That has meanwhile become
academic with the shifting of the 2022 World Cup from summer to winter. How big
does a country have to be to host a mega event.

Qatar spent a multitude on its World Cup in comparison to
its competitors. It wasn’t a bunch of oil-rich Arabs dressed in pyjamas with
tea towels on their heads and dollars coming out of every pore in their bodies.
It was like all bids the result of a rational cost/benefit analysis. Unlike its
competitors, Qatar’s reason for bidding was not simply soft power but a key
element of its foreign and defence policy that makes it far more valuable.

I am Johnny-come-lately to the conclusion that Qatar bought
the World Cup. Fact of the matter is that bribery and corruption in World Cup
bids was standard practice in FIFA. Qatar was unlucky that it was its bid that
helped spark the soccer governance corruption scandals. The question is how one
best extracts positive change in dealing with the Qatari case. Depriving Qatar
of its hosting rights, which is unlikely but remains nonetheless a distinct
possibility, is unlikely to produce social or political change. On the
contrary.

Fact of the matter is that most sporting mega events leave a
legacy of white elephants and debt. A recent video clip illustrated
dilapidated, discarded facilities in cities like Sarajevo and Athens that
hosted Olympic Games. I would argue that the Qatar World Cup holds out the
potential of change. There already has been change, too little, too slow but
nonetheless. Qatar today is the more or less the only Gulf state to grant entry
to its foreign critics, human rights activists, labour union operators and
journalists. There have of course been any number of incidents with journalists
being detained and activists having their visas or residency permits cancelled.

Nevertheless, there is an active dialogue with groups like
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Confederation
of Trade Unions. Human rights reports that take Qatar to task on the
circumstances of workers’ rights are have been launched at news conferences in
Doha. On paper, several Qatari institutions have significantly enhanced standards
for the working and living conditions of migrant workers and efforts to combat
widespread corruption in the recruitment process. Implementation often is the
issue. There is moreover a tension between Qatar’s need to act swiftly to
convince its critics of its sincerity and domestic constraints that stem from
fear as a result of the country’s demography. From my perspective giving the
process of change a chance of moving forward is far more important than
depriving Qatar of its hosting rights on the grounds of justice having been
done.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile